A member of Lockheed Martin's glassification team has run into controversy in the past year -raising questions about whether it will survive the year.

However, Molten Metal Technology does not play a role in anything Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Services needs to do next year to get its project going.

And Lockheed officials said Wall Street investors shouldn't be spooked from the Hanford project by Molten Metal's troubles.

Massachusetts-based Molten Metal originally was to provide the melter for Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems' low-level waste glassification plant.

But several months ago, Lockheed replaced Molten Metal and hired Envitco to build a melter.

One of the Department of Energy's ground rules for the glassification venture is that the corporate teams use proven technology.

Molten Metal's "technology was not developed enough, and it needed more investment, and we did not have the time," said Jack Dickey, president of Lockheed's glassification venture.

Replacing the subcontractor for the melter put Lockheed's team a few months behind schedule on its design work, Dickey said. "We're just now catching up," he said last summer.

Molten Metal was featured in a January Forbes magazine article that claimed the company often promises more than it can deliver on environmental cleanup technologies.

Now, the Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee and the Department of Energy's inspector general's office are looking to see if there is a link between political donations by William Haney III, former president of Molten Metal, and the company's success in getting DOE work.

These probes also focus on Vice President Al Gore and former DOE Undersecretary Tom Grumbly.

Time magazine reported Haney gave $82,000 in political contributions to Gore and the Democratic Party since 1994.

There are other links to the administration. Molten Metal lobbyist Peter Knight was President Clinton's campaign manager in 1996. And Knight and Grumbly worked together on Gore's staff in the 1980s when the vice president was a Tennessee congressman.

Knight also has done lobbying work for Lockheed Martin, corporate par ent of the company heading the glassification team at Hanford.

Molten Metal received a $1.7 million contract during President Bush's administration to provide cleanup technologies for DOE. During the Clinton administration, Molten Metal received several contract extensions and new contracts totaling $33 million.

So far, investigators haven't found any wrongdoing.

Grumbly joined ICF Kaiser International Inc. Although he supervises Kaiser's efforts in DOE privatization programs, Kaiser is not involved with Hanford's glassification efforts.

Molten Metal remains on the glassi fication team with the task of figuring out ways to recycle sodium that will be extracted from Hanford's wastes before it reaches the melter.

Investors shouldn't be scared off by the negative publicity, Dickey said. Molten Metal's role does not affect the glassification work or earnings on the project, he said.

But Molten Metal's financial problems raise questions about the company's ability to perform its limited function on the project.

The company said recently it might sell its business or shut down after this month unless it can raise more money.